THE POLITICAL EFFECT OF THE ECONOMIC SITUATION.
LORD BEACONSFIELD has always some resource, and the political world is curious to see what he will try next. He perceives, we doubt not, more clearly than anybody else that something must be done to revive the fading glories of his Administration. Whether Mr. Adam is right or Lord Claud Hamilton about the results of the by-elections, there can be little doubt that the prestige of the Ministry is waning, that the " Imperialist" cry is losing its force, that the invasion of Afghanistan, though not resisted, is not popular, that economists are counting the cost, and that in a very short time a people sorely pressed in their own affairs will be electing a. Parliament on pledges which, whether given by Liberal or Conservative, will be fatal to the showy bluster without which Lord Beaconsfield's Government has no raison d'être. Of late, the Ministry has been very unlucky as well as unwise. The Berlin Treaty has brought no peace in Europe, and though the people have been hopeful, and the Tory Press has preached patience with commendable skill and tiresome reiteration, they are unable to hide the facts altogether from themselves. With Russia said to be in Tchataldja, Turkey refusing to cede Novi Bazar, the Albanian League executing Pashas, and Rou- melia in disorder, they cannot declare that Europe is at rest. The Convention which was to protect Asiatic Turkey has proved a farcical failure. Some arrangement may still be made, after desperate pressure on the Sultan, by which a few Englishmen scattered over Asia Minor will acquire rights of interference when peasants are robbed, and of giving judgments when anybody ventures to appeal to them ; but the interference will be disregarded, and the appeals prevented by terror, and if they were not, Englishmen who believe in Lord Beaconsfield expected more than that. They hoped to see Asiatic Turkey become a second India nearer home, an em- pire administered by Englishmen, and they know just enough to perceive that this will not happen. The Turks want to keep Turkey, not to reform it. Then the country was at first childishly pleased with the acquisition of Cyprus, quite forget.. ting that it had in this generation given away to Greece islands as important and more civilised ; and now it is childishly dis- pleased at finding that its acquisition is not exactly an Eden ready-made. Because stations in Cyprus, without drainage, or houses, or pure water, have proved in summer, with a ther- mometer of 100, injurious to soldiers herded together, over- fed with meat, and allowed spirits as if they were in the North, therefore Cyprus, which once held an immense population and is now healthier than Rome in summer, is believed to be a pestiferous, fever-stricken desert, of which we should be well rid. Next, we have forced a war with Afghanistan, and English- men, apart from their curiously vigorous memory for disaster, perceive that a war with Afghanistan is not "a war with limited liability," as Lord Derby put it, but a war in which those who engage undertake unlimited liabilities, and can get in any case but a fractional dividend. Fighting for rocks against a semi-barbarous Power is work which may be needful, but which does not stir British imagination. The work has to be done, too, in cold-blood. The " rush " has been given up, and for six months perhaps there will be endless expenditure, no butcher's bill, and no visible vengeance on the sovereign who filliped Lord Lytton.
Again, English Members of the House of Commons—we do not say English electors, as a body—never quite forget the national till. They do not like to see the Treasury poor. They do not like—indeed, to their high credit be it spoken, they will hardly tolerate—annual deficits. They do not like voting for new taxes, particularly on sugar, or tea, or things which the average workman has to buy, and they like still less putting on Income- tax, which everybody they speak to has to pay. Yet they know all these things will have to be done if the Government goes on, Sir Stafford Northcote having nearly reached the limit of his smooth speeches, and not seeing exactly why he should be so careful for men who will not take his advice, and who make him reconsider so many of his Indian ideas. Even sincere Tories, if they sit for boroughs, do not like " depressed " finance, and feel uneasy when they are obliged to admit that fireworks, like all other luxuries, cost a great deal of money. They will talk about the greatness of our position, but it will be with the feeling that they would much prefer to be able to exult in the financial prosperity by which it had been accompanied. They will be compelled to apologise and explain, instead of boasting, and though faithful as Mamelukes to the Whip, will fidget and grow hot when Mr. Gladstone, and Mr..Goschen, and Mr. Childers, and Mr. Fawcett show them, in the plainest of English, the quantity of money they have spent. Above all, they will be depressed by a feeling that they have been extravagant just when they ought to have been exceedingly thrifty. It is unfair to say it is their fault, but the regular ill-luck of the Tories has pur- sued them once again. There never were more symptoms abroad of the approach of a period of " hard times." The squire- archy, who form the bulk of their party, are frightened by the price of wheat, which was sold in the Midlands last week at thirty-five shillings a quarter ; and at the fall reported by the Agricultural Gazette in the value of land for tillage, a fall said to be equal—though we hardly believe it—to a loss of four years' purchase. The farmers who elect them, though not exactly ruined, crops having been heavy and stock high, are bothered and worried by the wheat market, by the prospect of more taxes, and by the leases, which prevent their demanding lower rents or more liberty to cultivate. All the "interests," though unharassed by legislation, are harassed to a much greater degree by pecuniary losses. We can scarcely recall a trade which is not suffering from absence either of orders or of profits ; while some of the great industries are in such a posi- tion, that if we were to say broadly that Lancashire is more or less insolvent, Yorkshire more or less embarrassed, and the iron districts losing on every ton they produce, we should be guilty only of rhetorical exaggeration. There are plenty of wealthy manufacturers, miners, and ironmasters left, but the smaller men, the lesser companies, the new firms, the slightly embar- rassed men, and above all, the houses working with borrowed money, are pushed to a point at which, if the Banks contract advances, they must give up the struggle, and sink into the ranks of the permanently discontented. And the Banks must contract. We will not enter into an endless controversy, but no City man denies that the Money Market is "un- easy," that confidence is shaken, that " careful bankers "- which means solid bankers, with real wealth to lose—are wise in suddenly becoming cautious, or that, as they grow cautious, vast quantities of accommodation must be refused. All this means that even if we escape panic, there will be many fail- ures, large numbers thrown out of employ, heavy and ex- asperating reductions in wages, and much suffering and more alarm among the wage-receivers. Now discontent, whatever else it be, is not Tory. Discontented men always resent taxes, always watch the Government, always grow querulously sus- picious of fine words, especially when uttered by officials, whose reasoning they scarcely understand. As the distress spreads lower—and it is spreading, as witness last week's meet- ing of ironmasters and men in South Staffordshire, and the way sudden reductions are being met—the confidence in the Government and its policy almost invariably de- clines. It may decline unreasonably—though in this instance we do not think so—but it will decline. The middle-class are upon this point habitually and per- manently unfair to workmen. They forget that though a reduction of 50 per cent. in wages in two years, such as has occurred in some trades in Staffordshire, may be inevitable or may be fair, it is equal to an income-tax of ten shillings in the pound, which those who talk of "reductions" so glibly would resist by force. Men so situated will not be reasonable, even though their trouble may be, much of it, of their own making, they having accumulated nothing during fatter years ; and will, if Englishmen, ask whether this is the time for buying great estates, or raising mortgages, or increas- ing outlays, whether for showy or for solid purposes. The critical spirit, at all events, will be developed in the country, and will react even upon a majority like the one now existing, the most compact and best-disciplined majority which has been seen since Free-trade was finally accepted by both parties. Nothing, of course, will change a County Member's opinion, but the Conservative party as a governing force is now dependent in no small degree on borough votes.
We quite admit, be it understood, that in holding the Government responsible for distress the electors will be guilty of serious exaggeration. The Government has wasted money absurdly, and is going to waste more ; has kept up a feverish unrest in Europe, and has postponed Great Britain to India to a dangerous degree ; but it has not spent enough to affect in any serious way the springs of industry. The existing pressure is much more its misfortune than its fault, more especially as the Treasury has not seriously departed from the lines of sound finance. But it is, nevertheless, a bad Govern- ment, a Government intent on showy absurdities and viewy enterprises rather than solid work, and the moment it is gravely criticised by the people it will be found out. Such grave criticism is certain to begin when the people is in dis- tress, and that a period of distress is at hand it is impossible to doubt. It will be mitigated for the poor by the wonderful abundance and cheapness of bread, but the mitigation will scarcely be felt by the influential classes, who hardly notice the price of the loaf, but feel keenly their losses in trade, their declining rents, the " shrinkage " in all property, from land to Turkish bonds, and the addition of each separate penny to the detested Income-tax. Every statement the Government makes next Session will have to be made to a soured people, instead of a people prepared to accept anything with smiles, and to believe even in assurances of the perfect unanimity of the Cabinet upon every point.
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